Newcastle's child
by Budinca
Summary: The day when the glovemaker's daughter in Newcastle meets the Raven King.


**Hellooow ~**

**So here is me, finger crossed and I don't know what else, waiting for your opinions.**

**I'm sorry for taking this idea from someone else, the one of taking one footnote and turning it into a story, but this is my first fan fiction in a veeery long time and I thought that it would make a good start.**

**The story, nevertheless, didn't want to be written at first, but I hope that some of you will enjoy it owo.**

**Here is my variant of the 1****st**** footnote on page 418, about Newcastle's glovemaker's daughter meeting John Uskglass.**

It seemed that, just when England was beginning to feel complete again, it was falling to pieces more than ever. Less than a century ago, the British Isles were united under the same king. Jacob I, in the eyes of the poor, especially to those in north, looked like an attempt to recall the past. For, if a single man was able to unite Scotland with England, then that one ought to be showed almost as much respect as their_ true_ king.

They didn't have the time to get used to the feeling, however, for as Jacob's successor began to reign, conflicts seemed to arrive one after the other at his court. It was much harder to rule over two kingdoms than some thought. Judging from this, even the time's historians ought to acknowledge John Uskglass' impressive talent, as he had been the king of three countries at the same time. Furthermore, some considered quite obvious the fact that the old royalty didn't approve of this union. And, after many other conflicts and a civil war, the other Englishmen also realized that they had put their faith in those new men in power way too soon. England was not yet ready to be ruled by reason.

O

In the old city of Newcastle, the people were just getting used to the silent, peaceful years, as they were never too much affected by the country's other issues. Since the otherwise sad day when their king disappeared, the capital had rather turned into, one might say, a normal English town.

It was winter. Either because the season was particularly afraid of the plains of Northern England since its quarrel with the Raven king during his reign, when it was banished for four years and summer took its place or because of the blessings that the same man gave over the city, the winters in Newcastle were especially mild.

Hargreaves, the town's glovemaker, didn't have much to gain from this. For all that, he couldn't give up his job either, judging by the fact that he had children and a wife to feed and take care of and, anyhow, he wasn't so good at doing anything else.

While her brothers worked in town, Isabel, the glovemaker's youngest daughter, usually stayed inside the house with her father, playing any sort of game she could think of. She was a very joyful child, bold and curious, always up to something, so her parents noticed rather quickly when she wasn't in the house anymore.

O

A city can be a very queer thing in a child's eyes. After passing just a few streets from her house, young Isabel was already overwhelmed by the marked and by the crowd. A child's eye is by far created to see completely other things. Maybe this was why, just a little while later, Isabel found the one thing she loved the most in the world: a secret. There it was, where yesterday lay a few boxes of spoilt apples, a road. Unlike the others in her town, covered with melted ice and mud, this was a wide, quite clean, well-paved street and it led to no place that she knew.

She followed it straight away, going up, up, higher than it looked from afar, higher than any hill around the town. When the road stopped, she was in front of a great house, almost a mansion. The gate was open, so the glovemaker's daughter stepped forward, trying to contain as many details of the stone walls as she could. Probably someone else would have felt the eerie, otherworldly air of the place and left. At the same time, nothing could say that the girl didn't feel it too. Despite everything, she went in.

o

Perhaps the only difference between normal parents and him was that he could never see his children grow up. His offsprings were without age, he could hardly see them playing the games he laid in front of them and now more and more of them were starting to forget who their real father was.

The years he spent away from England by far changed his view of its inhabitants. While when he ruled over them, they were only his loyal (or not) servants, very briefly mentioned as something else, now it seemed that he could care and even bear some sort of foreign feeling of love.

As he turned his face from the ice-blue sky at his left, John Uskglass moved his gaze to the one at his right, to Newcastle. Faerie tried to change him back, that could be seen, just like scratches along his face. But his skin was perfect; pale, young, noble. Maybe his father really was that aristocrat he once mentioned.

Unlike in the "Other lands", his long, black hair was now ragged, like a nest, as if built from feathers, like birds dashed through it. And there was dew in it, like a veil or a silver crown. The road had been rough, his clothes were in pieces. A far cry from the king whom he once portrayed, at first glance. But his gaze was cold and firm, seeing over his city, his hills and his forests. Over the river, over the wind, over the sky, until it could reach England's heart. And it would beat once more through all its veins.

Like a memory or not at all, he brought himself a silver dish, maybe just to remind him of the past times. He saw the girl just as she reached out of her father's door. He decided to open a road for her, so she could come if she could feel.

The faint smile on his lips moved across the walls and the whole house formed itself again at her touch. Yes, it was true, she did not feel like a servant, but much like a child. All of them were. Nevertheless, a king's home had to be presentable. With a movement from his fingers, the shutters from the window at his back were stopped. It was just another human village, the place where the road stopped again. But it looked as if the spell not only affected that particular area. The whole house became eerily silent.

With what was almost a dramatic sigh, John Uskglass shoved his black cloak and sat down on the floor. The dish was in front of him, but his gaze was resting on the wooden door before him. He was watching her, as she entered the first room and ancient summer shadows ran over her. The magician thought that she might have liked that, that particular scent of flowers was new to her. Then she entered the second, where she looked at the _real_ door without seeing it, that magnificent fairy mirror. The songs of the birds of four hundred years ago was falling into her. The movement was almost gracious. A smile formed on the king's lips as he saw that she couldn't understand the river welcoming her and then he let her follow the stairs. Yes, that was right, every child of England was a child of his. They only needed a little help in order to find him.

The Raven king was preparing to give her the old greeting which he used back in his days. It was maybe just a little too much, but it brought back memories. The little girl screamed in the sea of ravens, but there was no rush, no hurry. He said her name. Twice. His voice barely moving his romantic face, but sounding as if it came from far away, it had something which his old servants would have sensed rather quickly. It sounded as if something inside him matured, gave fruit, grew older. And the old fairy accent was stronger. "Isabel" he said and the room was yet again empty, just two human beings. "Don't be afraid" and he reached out his hand. Five white, thin fingers.

O

Isabel's curiosity and joy at what she had just discovered returned on the moment and she came near the King of the North, happy that now she had someone to confess everything to. She felt safe, just as he suggested. After all, the man in front of her didn't look much older than her biggest brother, who was just in his twenties.

She told him about all that happened on that adventurous day and he just looked at her with distant warmth, in the kindest way he knew. From time to time, he would look into the silver dish, from time to time he would put an invisible mark on her face with his thumb.

When she had finished, the man started telling her tales of which she had never heard. Many of them. She would remember him as a very good story-teller, even better than her mother, because she could see the room change along with his words as he spoke.

O

Hours later, two of the three windows showed dawn. At that time, John Uskglass looked up from the water he kept touching and dividing and, holding her little warm hand in his, he led her through the house, down the road and into the city. Nobody recalled seeing a young man dressed in black walking along with the glovemaker's daughter that afternoon, but after that it could be seen that she was slightly changed. Her imagination was wild. She would go on for hour(s), telling stories that she believed the trees told her and jokes she "picked up from the sky". She would go into the deserted plains near the city and stay there.

The road didn't open again until 1817 and then nobody came through it. John Uskglass left the great, silver dish there, in one of his many houses and nobody, maybe not even him, found out who or what was he looking for at that time.


End file.
